


Shuri's Comeback

by TariTheNurse



Category: Black Panther (2018), Doctor Strange (2016), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Confusion, Fear, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Reunion, Revenge, the snappening
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-24
Updated: 2019-07-24
Packaged: 2020-07-17 23:20:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19964893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TariTheNurse/pseuds/TariTheNurse
Summary: The battle against Thanos’ hordes was raging but then the world sighed. Now Shuri finds herself in the same place…but something has changed.





	Shuri's Comeback

The blazing evening sky full of purple and orange hues greets Shuri with its familiarity. Comforting, like her mother’s embrace. _Mother._ Looking across the softly rolling plains, she doesn’t see Ramonda but the scattered figures of other Wakandans sitting or standing with confusion painted on their faces as brightly as the setting sun. Some seem scared and Shuri almost feels the same because she remembers the hordes of aliens fighting them just a moment ago…but there’s a veil in between. Maybe it’s the change of the sky (from the blue of the midday to the last rays before night) or it could be the quiet of nature only interrupted by the odd call from the oddly lost Wakandans. One thing’s certain in the princess’ speeding brain: more than a moment has passed since the events of the previous memory.

There are people walking out onto the plains from the surrounding areas, her own countrypeople as well as some of the foreigners like White Wolf. T’Challa emerges as the last from the darkened forest at the same time as the flying barges take off from the city. He too is confused but finds it in him to talk to the people he passes to calm them down. They’re his people. Even as his little sister, Shuri can’t deny the admiration she has for him and his way of handling the responsibilities of being a king - she’d never want that pressure herself. And the men and women see to him for guidance now more than ever, flocking to T’Challa and basking in his soothing presence as he strides silently through the grass. He only pauses briefly to consider the approaching barges and that’s when he sees Shuri. Then he’s no longer the king, the leader knowing no fear, but the big brother who feared the worst because the enemy was attacking his home and he wasn’t close enough to protect his family.

 _Brother._ Her wonderful, dumb brother. Big and strong and capable of holding her in a way that makes her feel safe again just like she did when she was little and it was baba holding her. T’Challa has never tried to fill the void baba left behind when they lost him – that wouldn’t be fair to ask of any sibling and it would have been impossible – because Shuri is old enough to handle herself both in life and obviously the battlefield and generally is the one who ends up teaching the older brother things rather than the other way around. None of that matters as the princess smushes her face against the black-clad chest of T’Challa.

“I got you, dadewethu,” the strong man promises, careful not to crush her in the frantic embrace, “I got you.”

She knows he does…yet she will be the one to give him the answers he needs. Answers that Shuri knows are tantalizingly close, hidden behind a veil stretching from the sunny battlefield when the world sighed to the moment she found herself standing here on the plains with the setting sun at her back and confused people around her.

Mother is among those on the barges together with Okoye and the enormous shape of M’Baku, all of them the same but not quite. All of them crying and happy…and scared. There are no proper words spoken for a while, just names repeated testingly.

“How long?”

Shuri’s stern question silence everyone around the royal family. _Oh, T’Challa, you don’t see it,_ the little sister’s heart weeps for the Black Panther as he tries to figure out what she means while everyone else does the dance of “not me”.

Okoye is the one to relent. “Five years…you’ve all been gone for five years.”

“Steve?” A verbal whiplash from the White Wolf, his worry echoing the pain Wanda tries so hard to hide.

A new voice answers: “He’s alive…for now.”

Everyone turns to face the speaker, a tall colonizer with greying hair at the temples and hideously old-fashioned clothes. For a moment, the cape sways in the still air, revealing a boy around Shuri’s own age peering past the man. They’re dressed in the same colours of red, blue/black and gold, but that’s the only similarities between their gear. There are other people too, all stepping through round circles of embers that swirl in the air and show other places on the other sides. _Portals! I wonder how they work?_

“Welcome back, I’m Doctor Strange,” the tall man bows slightly, “this is Peter Park-“

“I thought we were gonna use our made-up names?” the guy pipes in, immediately regretting having said anything.

“Long story short…Thanos is back to finish the job. You in?”

 _Five years._ The time lost can probably not be regained, but at least the purple space-grape will have to pay for what he did.


End file.
